WE can be thankful that old Henry Ford fought the Selden Patent until he won.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selden_patent

http://tinyurl.com/5u7cmb

Um, no.

And I still can’t see it.

What’s the deal with tinyurl.com? I don’t think I’ve ever clicked on a tinyurl.com link and had it work.

Ever.

http://tinyurl.com/5u7cmb

As others have pointed out in their comments, patents are not products. The patents Detroit has will not keep green cars from getting on the roads.

As a patent attorney for almost twenty years, and as someone who has been heavily involved in green car technology since 2002, I can state fairly confidentally that car patents will not be a key factor. They will play a role in small companies getting financing, but they will not be key.

Even though a patent attorney, I agree with patent law critics. The patent system has long been abused more than used.

Still, those who say that Chevron used the Ovshinsky patents to keep nickel metal hydride batteries from revolutionizing the electric car industry need to check their facts. That’s a myth.

CarnotCycle: Toyota can’t put the Synergy Drive system into a truck or Sequoia. It’s as large as it can be in the RX400h and Highlander.

I’ll give you an example. Back when Mr. Dyson invented the bagless cyclone vacuum cleaner, he shopped the idea around to the big vacuum cleaner makers, such as hoover. They all passed because they all made money selling bags. Why would they cut off that source of revenue?

So Mr. Dyson decided to make and sell his own cleaner using his idea. The rest, as they say, is history.

It has since been revealed that Hoover did take a serious look at licensing his idea. But they did so with the intent of suppressing it, not developing it. Thankfully, they didn’t buy it.

I would like to see a “use-it or loose-it” clause put in to patent law. There are so many good ideas that are suppressed by those with investments in old business models.

Ford’s hybrid technology appears to be very good – and their Fusion Hybrid’s numbers appear to be ready to kick ass.

“Hybrid” is the fad-buzzword of the day according to market-research pie charts. We need a hybrid system!

We need to put the buzzword on our cars too, but keep it cheap. With a bigger alternator, washing machine motor on an axle, and a couple more Die-Hards, we can sell “hybrid” cars to the masses and not get sued for false advertising…the suckers will never know the difference!

Toyota is obviously “plugged in” to the hybrid scene but they are not anxiously prepping a Synergy Drive Sequoia because they know Sequoia buyers don’t care and they understand who they are trying to sell what to. GM’s management just flies blind by pie charts.

When I was an impressionable undergraduate student a girlfriend’s father, who was very highly placed in Sr. management among the then Big 3 told me that it wasn’t so much patents that matter.

Patents – he said – tell the world what you are doing and smart guys can engineer around them. Happens every week in the medical technology world I have since learned.

What matters is trade secrets. Things you know how to do that others don’t.

Besides, those patents are assets that should be sold. Or should, through the beneficence of B. Frank, I become part-owner of the now Big 2.8, I want those patents sold and I want royalties. Now.

Just goes to show how patents pervert the industry. Many are shelved by companies who seek to eliminate competition for their own product that way. Patent law should be revised so that patent holders rights are limited to compensation when other parties want to use them. The right to block other parties from using tchnology that’s potentially beneficial for humanity is perverse and should be eliminated.

It’s a great tech which is scaleable from city busses all the way down to small cars.

Really? Then why haven’t they released a hybrid CAR that isn’t a complete joke? Not even talking about a small car here. The Malibu’s system makes a mockery of the term ‘mild’, and it’s a mid-sized car. Where’s the two-mode version?

Are you familiar with the Rambus saga? Some of their actions are a textbook case of how the US Patent system has become a farce to be exploited by the parasitic legal industry.

As long as GM continues to develop the technology and take out cost, it will be a good powertrain option.

Also since the two-mode has only been on sale for one year how can it be called a “dismal failure”?

Please read the full white paper which the Detroit News op-ed was based upon:

http://www.oceantomo.com/PDFs/It’s_Not_the_Car_JEM_Dec08.pdf

I didn’t realize it was such an “old” car already. Sadly, it reinforces the point even more.

I agree with your post but the Prius has been on sale since 1997 (in Japan) so it’ll be 13 years on the market in 2010.

Mr. Malackowski should do a study to see how many of those green tech patents from GM are actually incorporated into a vehicle you can buy. I think he would see his favorable numbers go down a bit, no matter the statistical massage performed.

GM had no hybrid because they thought it was a “fad” I believe. Oops. Then they take what appears to me to be a very good hybrid drivetrain from a technical point of view and put it in a….Escalade. GM Ford or Chrysler has yet to build an actual passenger car with a real purpose-built hybrid drivetrain. When the Volt comes out (if) in 2010 (again, if) Toyota will be on the third generation of their hybrid flagship and will have been selling their hybrid flagship for something like six years straight. Ironically, the Volt will be released on the 15th anniversary of the doomed EV1. ‘Nuff said.

Patents do not disappear. They are recorded. If anything trade secrets might disappear, but not patents. This argument is pathetic Detroit desperation.

1) GM has no money to bring their technology to market. Even if they get bailed out it will only be enough to keep their doors open with their overpaid UAW workers churning out current product so their 8 brands can sell it, while GM attempts in vain to pay of $50 Billion in debt.

GM can’t even decide what channel to put the vaporware Volt in if is ever produced. Chapter 11 re-org without UAW liabilities and the expense of filling and marketing 8 brands would put GM in a much better position to develop for market any viable technology that it does have.

2) Even if they liquidate the patents will still exist, and someone will use them. GM is horrible at bringing innovative products to market, i.e. the Corvair, the Fiero, the EV1 debacle.

If the US wants to develop green technology I would advocate granting, with heavy oversight and patent sharing agreements (one of Bob Dole’s legacies – we give you the money you give us a stake in the patent), $34 Billion to US research universities.